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The federal government was preparing on Wednesday to dispatch dozens of federal agents to the Bay Area region for a major crackdown on immigration, sparking criticism from California leaders.

Details of the Operation

Specifics of the mission were gradually becoming clear, but it will allegedly feature approximately 100+ law enforcement personnel, according to reports. The officers are expected to begin using the Coast Guard facility in the East Bay, facing San Francisco. It was still uncertain whether state soldiers would join the operation.

Government Backlash

The deployment follows months of statements by Donald Trump to take action against the liberal city. The state's leader Gavin Newsom criticized the move, labeling it “straight from the autocrat's manual”.

“He sends out unidentified officers, he dispatches customs officers, he dispatches immigration officials, he generates concern and apprehension in the population so that he can lay claim for solving that by sending in the national guard,” the governor stated. “This is exactly like the incendiary extinguishing the inferno.”

City Preparation

San Francisco is the latest metropolitan center focused on by Donald Trump’s campaign of mass immigration arrests. The deployment is likely to cause a confrontation between the administration and local leaders who have pledged to prevent armed border control in the city.

San Franciscans have been readying for an extended period for Trump to carry out frequent statements to send troops to the city. At a Wednesday media briefing, San Francisco’s city leader stated again that the city was ready.

“Over recent weeks, we have been anticipating the likelihood of an impending federal deployment in our city,” declared the leader, noting that he had taken further executive actions on Wednesday to “bolster the city’s support for our foreign-born residents, and ensure our offices are organized prior to any national intervention.”

Judicial Background

Regardless of court battles to operations in a number of cities, including Chicago, Portland and Southern California, Trump has asserted “absolute authority” to dispatch the national guard in cities, pointing to the presidential authority which enables presidents limited power to deploy troops on domestic land.

Local Response

Newsom – who once held office as San Francisco’s city leader – had pledged to step in “without delay” to a deployment in the city. “The concept that the national administration can send forces into our cities with no justification supported by evidence, no monitoring, no responsibility, no consideration of regional control – it constitutes an attack on the rule of law,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including social justice nonprofits created during the initial federal leadership, have prepped to quickly mobilize a public demonstration in the city, as well as vigils at public spaces.

Local Effect

In San Francisco’s Mission district, a predominantly Latino community, elected official informed journalists last week she and her constituents had been preparing for this moment. “The point that workers cease employment, when minority individuals cannot move about freely without the concern of national personnel targeting based on race and detaining them, the point when families keep children home, grow too frightened to go to the food market or doctor,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is fundamentally a shutdown the extent of which we have not experienced since the health crisis.”

National Guard Condition

About three hundred out of 4,000 California national guard troops remain federalized under an command from Trump. About two hundred of them had been sent to the neighboring state, where they were remaining in uncertainty amid a judicial dispute over their deployment.

This week, Newsom said he had summoned the state military personnel under his control to operate distribution centers amid the administrative stoppage.